Annie was watching him with a strange mixture of emotion in her eyes-half amusement, half something indefinable. She was part of a generation that tended to scoff at the kind of gesture Blade had just made. But she was also from a family whose fortunes had been founded in the great days of that now sadly shrunken Royal Navy. Her family home was filled with portraits, models, and books telling of those days and of sons who had «gone down to the sea in ships» flying that same white ensign-and sometimes not returned. She might smile at Blade's nostalgic gesture, but she would never ridicule him for it. And in an odd way she was moved by it.

Whatever combination of emotions he had aroused in her was still working that night, after they had dropped anchor in the sheltered mouth of a small creek and snugged the yacht safely down for the night. Blade was conscious of her brown eyes, more intent on him and wider than ever, as they sat in the cabin, baking the chill out of their bodies with the cabin heater and shoveling in soup, corned beef, and peaches out of cans from the galley lockers.

Champagne glowed in the light of the lanterns and bubbled in plastic cups as she poured it from a chilled bottle, then curled up on the leather-covered couch beside Blade. That couch was the one Annie called her passion pit. As she passed in front of the light, Blade saw the silhouette of her lithe figure through the thin yellow robe that was her only clothing.

She clicked cups with him and drained hers in a single long swallow, then put it on the floor and reached out one long-fingered hand to caress the hard, chiseled line of his jaw. The hand moved down along his neck and under the collar of his shirt, stroking the sinewy muscles of his shoulder. Blade turned, his lips crinkling in a smile, and reached out with his own large left hand to stroke in gentle but rapid succession her cheek, lips, jaw, neck, shoulder-and then the delicate curve of breast that thrust out the light fabric of the gown and the even more delicate bud of the nipple, visible in its center.

Normally she liked the long, slow warm-up, hands and lips roaming over each other's body, approaching inch by inch the final merging and the joy. But that night whatever emotions had her in their grip made her more urgent, more hungry, as though she had already been half-aroused before Blade's hand reached out to her.

She loosened the belt of the robe and let it fall open so that Blade's hands could slip down inside it easily and wander over her bare skin. Her breathing quickened as he cupped both breasts gently, his fingers playing a gentle rhythm on their curves while his palms pressed with steadily increasing force against the already rigid nipples. She shrugged the robe from her shoulders and stood up in a single flowing motion, there reached out once more toward Blade.

Blade pulled off his own clothes. By the time he was naked, he was fully aroused by the sight of Annie's body gleaming in the light, her blazing eyes and quick breathing, and her sinuous swaying. Now he shared her urgency, responding to it in the most natural way. His engorged member jutted rigidly before him as he turned to face her.

She flowed up against him, her long slim arms and legs winding around his, her firm breasts flattening against his chest. This aroused him still further, more than he would have believed possible. His hands traced a line down her spine and cupped her buttocks. She moaned softly and burrowed her face into the side of his neck, her mobile lips and darting tongue working from his earlobe down to his shoulder and then back again. It was his turn to make an incoherent sound. All the sensations of his body seemed to be flowing from that swollen and stiffened rod. He felt his throat drying out and his breath coming in irregular gasps that would have made it impossible for him to speak even if he had wanted to. But there was nothing to say, only to do.

He urged Annie back toward the couch again while his hands tightened their grip on her buttocks and her arms locked more and more tightly around his torso. Their bodies were pressed so hard together that he could feel the delicate curls of her pubic hair twining around his phallus, now pressed hard against her but not yet in her. Then it was her turn to force the pace. She momentarily slipped free from his arms to lie back on the couch, legs spread and raised, eyes open, fingers curling and uncurling in a series of beckoning gestures.

Blade responded to that beckoning and in a single abrupt gesture swung himself into position above her. He lowered himself slowly as she arched her body up toward him, and then he was in her. Her eyes and mouth opened still wider as he drove deep inside her, timing his thrusts with the arching of her body to bury himself deeper and deeper. Annie responded quickly and climaxed easily, but as far as she was concerned, that simply meant even more opportunities for delight at each bout. So Blade was as careful to pace himself with her as if she had taken half an hour to reach the boiling point.

Steadily he stroked, calling on all his endurance to hold himself back each time Annie heaved and writhed under him. Her sweat-glazed thighs locked still tighter around him, and her feet beat a-tattoo on his back. Her mouth was continuously open, but only incoherent animal noises came from it-sobs and gasps and little screams as the spasms wrenched her body. Bit by bit Blade felt his endurance reaching its limits and his control slipping-as though he were boiling inside and about to burst. He fought to hold, held on through one more heave of Annie's thighs. Then with a choked sound no more human than Annie's gasps and moans, he poured himself into her so fiercely that it seemed as though he would drain away through his fiercely pumping organ and shrink away to nothing. Finally every part of him went limp except the massive arms that still held his weight off Annie. Her eyes were glazed as they looked up at him.

Gradually life and movement returned to both of them. He eased himself down on the floor with one arm still trailing across Annie's body. Both her hands were still locked over his arm. Gradually they sucked in enough air so that their chests no longer heaved like those of mountaineers struggling up a slope. Gradually their eyes met again, and Annie's expression of animal contentment gave way to her normal impish smile.

And gradually Blade realized that this night was the beginning of the end for them. They had pushed the sexual attraction and companionship that lay at the base of their relationship as far as it would go. Both would shy away from pushing things further, into marriage. It might take a few months, of course, because there was nothing bad pushing them apart, merely their own preferences. But there would eventually come a day when they would see each other at a party in London and do nothing more than smile and nod in greeting, then pass on, each with his own partner.